Really Surprised!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I'd never heard of the film and by the end was in tears. The lead character Leslie is brilliantly acted. Don't expect feel good. The film should be seen by all caring people. Child abduction is evil. Knowing that intellectually is one thing but seeing the reality of it is necessary for people to put an end to it.The film is a heart breaker

We can't … enjoy the movie, because it isn't meant to entertain. It's a detailed docudrama that shows the abduction and forced prostitution of an eight-year-old girl, then the permanent destruction of her life in her teen years.It's gut-wrenching. The first half of the movie plays almost like a twisted procedural in which a child pornographer and slaver (brilliantly and unexpectedly portrayed by Tom Arnold) tricks and kidnaps young Leslie (Ryan Simpkins).We're shown the nuts and bolts of everything – starting with how Arnold's character earns her trust ("Can you help me find my dog?", "I'm a friend of your father's.") And Arnold is so convincing in the role, it's easy to see how lines like this can fool a child. We see how she's drugged, imprisoned, and persuaded that her parents don't want her anymore, then how she's coaxed and reassured into prostitution to pedophiles. There were a few times when I wanted to shout at the screen – such as when Arnold's character actually coaches the prepubescent girl about what customers expect. Then we're even shown how children are marketed and sold – with catalogs and photos and polite, secret business meetings. Jeremy Sisto and Harold Perrineau show up in effective supporting roles that will turn your stomach.Then – midway through the film, we fast-forward to Leslie's life as a teenager, where she is now somehow free of Arnold and his even more evil partner (well played by Kevin Zegers, who I remember best as the sweetnatured, clean-cut kid in Zack Snyder's 2004 "Dawn of the Dead" remake).Again – it's hard to know whether to recommend this movie. To call it sad would be an understatement. It IS a pretty well made film – the acting is great all around, and especially from Arnold. And IMDb.com says that that writer/director Damian Harris developed it after years of research among child victims.It has some problems, though. For a drama about a victim, its central character just isn't well rendered or extremely likable. It's awkwardly structured. Unless I'm mistaken, we never find out how Leslie escapes her captors.The movie is also poorly paced, I think … it drags a bit around the middle and the anticlimactic ending feels like a postscript. Finally, it seems to make little use of John Malkovich's genius in a supporting role. (That guy is goddam mesmerizing – like Anthony Hopkins, he could read names out of a telephone book and make it interesting.)Quite honestly, if this movie is as accurate as it claims (and there's no reason to think it wouldn't be), it would make a great educational tool. No child should watch it, but it's so explicit and procedural in nature that it seems like a great resource for training police officers or parents.If you watch this, I strongly recommend watching "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey" or "Old School" afterward – y'know … just so you don't kill yourself.http://ericrobertnolan.wordpress.com/

....unfortunately. It made me viscerally ill to watch. The message, as told, was poignant to the point of discomfort in the watcher. Yet, it's still a must see movie.Everything begins with a confusing opening scene of a young woman in an obviously less than ideal situation contemplating. Her life, her options, her choices? We don't know. The reason becomes clear as we are driven to accept the worst through the following scene of the innocuous morning routine of an elementary aged schoolgirl that quickly grows recognizable for the darkness it portends.Astoundingly well written, and equally well portrayed, "Gardens" doesn't simply rely on the shocking subject matter of child abduction and exploitation to grip it's audience. The play of absolutes being blurred (with accompanying emotional turmoil) while never losing sight of the abomination of child sexual exploitation are what truly captivated this viewer.Kudos to all involved with "Gardens". It's rare a when a movie can treat it's subject matter so honestly while retaining cinematic quality. Don't miss this movie, but, get ready for a gut wrenching story that will leave it's mark on your thoughts for years to come.

This film is so many things, but above all a labor of love. It's about a subject that is upsetting, disturbing, horrifying, and really happening all over our world. Evil is real and evil does not care who it hurts or destroys. Child sexual abuse and exploitation are horrible, destructive crimes that needs to be addressed. I thank Damian Harris for this film, a beautiful portrait of the children who are being destroyed by this evil, and a wake-up call for anyone who cares to open their ears. It leaves you wishing you knew how to stop the evil and help the children. It left me very upset and angry and saddened.Aesthetically, it is superbly filmed, beautifully acted, directed, and written. It has all the earmarks of any favorite to have made it to Oscar night, but it got the short shrift somehow. Tom Arnold deserves an Oscar for his work as Alex. Unfortunately, pedophiles and rapists and pornographers do not wear black hoods and capes. They look like everyone, and this particular man, while we know him as the story's villain who sets the stage for evil and degradation, is very human. You see his pathetic side even as he drugs the children and films himself having sex with them. Evil isn't black and shadowy. Evil is a friendly face asking you to help find their dog.I was also very moved and impressed by the performances of Kevin Zegers (mostly in deleted scenes on the DVD!!!) as Alex's cohort, very possibly an older victim of Alex's, and Ryan Simpkins and Jermaine Scooter Smith as Leslie and Donnie, the young children who are exploited. To escape their nightmarish world of being raped by strangers in front of a camera, making videos that will surely be passed around in the perverts' underworld, the two children begin reading from Rudyard Kipling's THE JUNGLE BOOK, and creating a world that they don't have to share with anyone.But unlike many of the critiques I have read, I was even MORE moved by the performances of Evan Ross and Gillian Jacobs as the same children years later. Their damage is evident without being melodramatic. Their bond, part romantic, part familial, is touching without resorting to sentiment. Jacobs' performance has been criticized, and her appearance described as "too pretty" to be a street person. However, if you pay attention to her eyes, in some scenes sad and soft, in others, hard-edged and "old", you see the whole horrible story. Part I of the story is about the damage being inflicted, and that's important, but Part II is important as well, as it is about what these children become after someone has used them and tossed them away like rubbish.I believe the most important segment of the film is when the scum-bag pimp asks Leslie to help him get his hands on a 12 year old girl staying in a children's' shelter. Has the evil destroyed Leslie so totally that she will do the very same evil deeds as the men who victimized her? Also in the cast are John Malkovich as a strict but caring counselor in the shelter, Jeremy Sisto as a pornographer/pimp who supplies children to affluent pedophiles, Kyle Gallner as a male prostitute, and Harold Perrineau as one of those kind of pedophiles you've heard arguing that "sex with children is natural, wholesome, good..." Anything to avoid admitting their sick, destructive perversion.There comes a time when Leslie is told that her parents did not give her away, that they have been searching for her for years. The ending is sad and leaves you almost in tears. Her original family is no longer her "family". They are simply strangers. It's such a heartbreak to realize that she cannot ever feel at home with them ever again, that her life with them has been altered forever.Her one true friend, Donnie, is out there somewhere, the only one she will ever feel "family" about. I was hoping that in the end, we'd see them reunited, but who knows what happened to either of them.This is definitely not a feel good movie, but it is a very beautiful story and film. You may not be able to watch it more than once, but anyone who has a child ought to at least do so.